by Bernardo Cervellera

With only a few days to go to the Synod, a discreet skepticism, silence and disinterest pervades. Secularization affects the mission ad gentes. As well as new political, economic, scientific, religious scenarios. Benedict XVI urges a renewal of faith and mission. The world media has become one of the most important arenas for evangelisation.

Rome (AsiaNews) - From October 7 to 28 next, the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the theme "The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian faith" will be held in the Vatican. The celebration of the Synod - states the Instrumentum Laboris -... is expected to enliven and energize the Church in undertaking a new evangelization, which will lead to a rediscovery of the joy of believing and a rekindling of enthusiasm in communicating the faith. "

However, instead of enthusiasm,  a certain skepticism and indifference pervades: little reflection, few debates, few contributions. Even in the missionary world there is a certain skepticism. Some believe that the new evangelization only regards the western world. An ad gentes missionary, lost in the forest, or among the deeply religious peoples of Africa or Asia, has little concept of the urgency of a growing insensitivity towards the faith and the veil of indifference of secularism. However this vision, somewhat Rousseauistic in nature, of naive indigenous far from the perils and poisons of the West,  is false. Firstly, because the force of globalization has succeeded in penetrating even the most hidden enclaves of forests and deserts - where radio, cell phones, coca-cola and money can be found, instilling new ways of thinking, and secondly because secularization understood as living as if God did not exist embraces the very world that tradition attributes to the mission ad gentes. Just think of the secularization rampant in many cities of the Philippines, or scientific atheism propagated in the Indian megalopolis - often in opposition to the intrusion of Hinduism and other religions - not to mention the giants of state atheism such as China, Vietnam, North Korea and several Central Asian countries, along with Russia. The countries of the Middle East are not even exempt, or those in Africa. In fact, the phenomenon of doing without God and a religious reference is global, universal and therefore affects Christians of all latitudes. It is not by chance that among the members of the Synod, the Synod fathers and experts,  there are dozens of outstanding personalities from the cultures of Africa, Asia and Latin America, confirming that the themes of the Synod affect  the entire planet just as they affect all cultures on the planet.

The same can be said for other horizons that the Assembly wants to tackle: migration, the economic and political scenario, scientific and technological research, communications, fundamentalism. In fact, the time has come for missionaries to consider themselves part of a Church that evangelizes the entire world: there can not be a foreign missionary who does not have the reawakening of faith in his country of origin at heart, and there can be no Italian Christian or from any other ancient Church who does not care for world evangelization. There where a heart catholic beats - in Italy, India, China - is momentum to universal mission. For this reason the Instrumentum Laboris speaks of convergence and complementarity between the mission ad gentes and the new evangelization (Nos. 76-89).

This Synod is of crucial importance not only for the mission ad gentes, but especially for the missionaries ad gentes. In fact, it aims to revive the mission understood as communication of a personal faith in Jesus Christ. Too often, mission has been reduced to an object, something to do. For too long, the origin of all this has been taken for granted, it has been forgotten that mission is primarily communicating faith with joy and enthusiasm. The Synod wants to put the mission of faith at the very center. It "is not just a doctrine, a wisdom, a set of moral rules, a tradition. Christian faith is a real encounter, a relationship with Jesus Christ" (18). Communicating the faith means really understanding the reasons why we believe, why we are Christians, or Buddhists, or Muslims, or atheists, offering others that "something more" that we enounter in the gift given to us by Jesus Christ.

For this to happen we must rediscover the living tradition of the Church, the Catechism and the Second Vatican Council, too often misunderstood and badly used. We must also find new ways to proclaim the faith even in the new areopaghi, such as media, which has perhaps, become the first area of universal mission, even mission ad gentes (Nos. 61-62). We at AsiaNews want to serve the Gospel and the Pope in this renewal of mission.

 

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